


like thunder, a storm, a helpless rage

by fallofrain



Series: ex nihilo [1]
Category: Outlander (TV), Outlander Series - Diana Gabaldon
Genre: F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Inspired by The Walking Dead, Modern AU, Smut, University Students, Zombie AU, Zombie Apocalypse, also a little, but not grosser than outlander i think, this one's a little gross
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-15
Updated: 2019-08-24
Packaged: 2020-09-02 20:01:32
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,667
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20251138
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fallofrain/pseuds/fallofrain
Summary: Dawn appears grey on the horizon, and the night pulls back slowly as the weak sunlight creeps through the trees. He stays still, savouring the warmth on his face, the relaxation of his muscles, the soft weight pressed against his side.“Morning.” Claire’s head lifts from his shoulder, her body still moulded to his but her eyes alert, amber piercing through him, warming him more than the sunlight.“Morning, Sassenach,” he says, sliding his hand into her mess of hair. She smiles softly.“We made it another day.”“Another day,” he agrees, and moves to get up.Claire and Jamie are caught in the middle of a zombie apocalypse and must rely on each other in their search for a safe place.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hey! I'm back with another fic. This one is very heavily influenced by the walking dead, and it pretty much wrote itself lol. Please heed the warnings for graphic depictions of violence. There is also very lightly implied threat of sexual assault.

Dawn appears grey on the horizon, and the night pulls back slowly as the weak sunlight creeps through the trees. He stays still, savouring the warmth on his face, the relaxation of his muscles, the soft weight pressed against his side.

“Morning.” Claire’s head lifts from his shoulder, her body still moulded to his but her eyes alert, amber piercing through him, warming him more than the sunlight.

“Morning, _Sassenach_,” he says, sliding his hand into her mess of hair. She smiles softly.

“We made it another day.”

“Another day,” he agrees, and moves to get up.

*

Their mountain bikes are weathered but serviceable, thanks to Jamie’s diligent care. Still, they move slowly. Claire has a reasonably well-stocked first aid kit in her bag, but even a twisted ankle could kill if it incapacitates enough.

They ride side by side where they can, Jamie keeping Claire to his right so he has his left hand free to reach the machete strapped to his side, and Claire keeps a sharp eye out for any movement in the short grass.

It’s an easy day. They only see one zombie, lying stomach down in the grass, glaring up at them with boundless hunger as it tries to drag itself closer. Its bottom half is gone, and Jamie manages to decapitate it before it can open its mouth to moan.

Claire eyes it critically.

“Looks like he was run over,” she says. “See, the crush marks there.” She points to the bottom of its ribcage, which does look rather smeared. He wants to look away, but he can tell she is building up to something.

She edges closer and nudges it over onto its back with her foot.

“Look,” she says, and he frowns.

“Aye,” he says slowly. The front of the zombie’s shirt is streaked brown and green from the ground, but the front and sides are relatively clean. It had been run over relatively recently, then. Which means there may be people in the area.

They both move off the dirt road they had been following, towing their bikes into the meagre safety of a patch of young trees growing to the west. Claire pulls out the binoculars and scans around while he takes a quick check of the surrounding area, every sense alert to the smallest sign of a living creature anywhere near them.

“Safe,” he says, and she puts her binoculars down.

“For now,” she replies.

*

Dinner is canned tuna, sweetcorn, and the multivitamins that Claire presses into his hand. He wants some of the instant noodles that are in the bottom of his pack, but they daren’t light a fire, and besides they’re at least a day away from Loch Glass, which is the nearest source of drinkable water.

Claire eats slowly, the wrinkle in between her eyebrows telling him that she is still worried, and so he leans over and steals a bit of her sweetcorn.

“No manners,” she says, but a smile plays at the corner of her mouth. “I’ve done my best with you all these months, and you’re still as hopeless as the day we met.”

“I was a perfect gentleman the day we met,” he says, wagging his plastic fork at her, and she snorts.

“If you call egging me on into a drinking contest a perfect gentleman, then yes, you were a Prince.”

“It wasna a drinking contest,” he protests. “Beer pong is a verra real and noble game. It wasna my fault ye dinna have much hand-eye coordination.”

“I have enough to stick this fork in your eye,” she threatens, and laughs, the setting sun at her back lighting her hair up in every shade of brown and gold there is, settling under her skin and making it glow, and oh, he loves her.

*

Without artificial light, they are in darkness within the hour. They crawl under the lean-to that he had constructed with the tarp while they could still see, and arrange themselves with their heads by their packs, the bicycles guarding the openings.

If he cranes his head just so, he can just about see the night sky and a small patch of stars, glittering coldly above them. He wonders if the stars can see what has happened to their beautiful blue planet, if they would care if they did know, and brutally quashes the thought before it can go any further. Flights of fancy won’t help them now.

Claire is pressed against him, soft lips brushing his collarbone. It has been just the two of them for so long that he is acutely tuned to her, like a violin string in the presence of a bow, and he knows what she is going to do before she does it.

Her hand is warm on the top of his thigh, her mouth insistent as she tries to urge him onto his back, but he stays where he is, ignoring her huffs of annoyance.

It’s not safe to take off all their layers, and so he settles for what he can touch under her long-sleeved shirt, the smooth skin rippling with goosebumps under his touch. She gasps into his mouth when he palms her arse, whimpers high-pitched when he brushes a thumb over her nipples, and hums in satisfaction at the quiet noise he makes when she works a hand into his trousers.

“Quiet,” she warns, eyes glinting even in the weak light.

“Ye first,” he says, and pushes her trousers down roughly, over her knees. She wraps an arm around his waist and tries to pull him closer, huffs when he pulls away.

“Turn around,” he says, and she looks at him for a moment before doing just that. He has to close his eyes when she pushes her arse - possibly the best one in Scotland - into him; he throbs so hard he thinks he will spend himself right then and there, but he doesn’t, and instead reaches around so that he can touch between her legs, slide his fingers through slippery softness.

She can only push back against him, and he can tell that she is biting her hand to keep quiet, so he puts them both out of their misery and slides forward slowly, slowly, so he can feel her take every inch of him, so that she gasps brokenly as he nestles deep.

She clamps down and he groans quietly into her hair, breathing deep to keep control. She stops biting her hand so she can reach back and grab the arm that’s still between her legs. She squeezes hard and he moves, grinding up, slowly, patiently, until he finds the spot that makes her stiffen against him.

He doesn’t know how long they move for, how long it takes for her to throw her head back and clamp down around him again, so hard that he sees stars, shaking in his arms as if she is in icy water. He knows that he follows soon after, and cannot bring himself to do more than gather her close to him.

They breathe hard together, his blood roaring in his ears, and she tugs at his hand, wrapping it around her waist.

“Go to sleep, my lad,” she says softly. “Tomorrow’s another day.”

  
*

The route they take to Loch Glass is meandering and circular, a barely-there brown line on their probably out-of-date map that Jamie has to stop and squint at several times to make sure they are taking correctly. It’s worth it though, to avoid the roads that will no doubt be clogged with the undead, trapped in a vehicle if they are lucky, mobile and hungry if they aren’t.

They had learnt that lesson quickly on their way out from York. The phones had gone dead the day before, and they had decided to flee north, away from the overpopulated southwest. The undead had boiled out of the surrounding area when he had dropped something on the road, the sound carrying dozens of feet in the quiet. They had followed he and Claire for miles after. The quiet shuffle of their feet, the blank hunger in their eyes, the sound of his and Claire’s breathing as they struggled not to panic, run for it, and expend all their energy is a memory that still springs on him in quiet moments.

Claire had pointed to a mostly constructed bridge, hand trembling from exertion and and panic, and they had run then, climbing into the scaffolding and pulling themselves up to safety, praying that they wouldn’t find themselves surrounded, but they had been lucky, and the bridge was empty.

They hadn’t had anything on them except the clothes on their backs and a pocketknife Jamie had found on the road. They hadn’t even understood what was happening, except that no one’s phone worked anymore and nightmares were roaming the streets.

Loch Glass is relatively large and remote, crescent-shaped and narrow with a rocky shore. They stop their bikes at the first open space and Claire immediately flops to the ground.

“I’m never getting on a bike again,” she says, covering her eyes with her hands.

“Fine by me,” he says. “I can just about tuck ye into my backpack, I think.”

“Good idea,” she says.

She doesn’t stay still for too long, though, and eventually pulls herself upwards to empty their bags and take inventory while he refills their water bottles.

“We have just about enough for three days, I think,” Claire says, frowning at the array of canned goods, energy bars, and plastic wrapping laid out in front of her. “We may have to go into a town soon.”

“Hmmmph,” he says.

“We’ll have to eventually,” she says. “Unless you’re ready to help me plant my garden.”

Claire’s most prized possession - more than her machete or first aid kit, he thinks, are the dried seeds she keeps in the front pocket of her bag. She’d scavenged them from a farmers’ collective they had seen in the Heights of Brae, and he’s caught her cooing to them once or twice.

“A bit rocky here,” he says, and hands her a filled-up bottle. She drinks fast - they never have quite enough water, or enough of anything else - and passes it back. “I dinna think yer aubergines will survive.”

“They can survive anywhere,” she says, but they both know they aren’t going to linger. They are too in the open, a touch too close to a major road to be completely at ease. Still, access to this much water is rare enough that they both settle a little.

Claire strips off her jacket and and looses her hair from its tie, and he watches out of the corner of his eye.

“Just enjoyin’ the view,” he says lazily, waving an arm that encompasses the lake, the mountains behind them, and the sky, and she rolls her eyes.

“Of course,” she says, and continues, taking off her long sleeved shirt carefully wrapped in duct tape, leaving her grubby undershirt on. There’s a sharp delineation between the clean white skin of her chest and the normally exposed skin. He can see she’s lost more weight, too, when she leans forward to wash her face. Muscle cords in her arms where there had been soft flesh before.

“You’re still staring,” she says, face muffled by her hands.

“Verra respectfully,” he assures her. She wipes her face and scrubs her arms instead, frowning at the layer of grime that comes off.

“I would trade everything we have for just one hour with a bathtub,” she says.

“Everything?”

“Every single thing,” she says.

“I see. Are ye alone in this bathtub fantasy of yers, then?”

“Hmm. You can be there, if you like. I’ll need someone to wash my back.” She grins. “Take your shoes and socks off.”

He’s used to the routine by now, and gamely does as she says, soaking his feet next to hers in a little eddy by the shore. Sitting side by side, her head rests neatly on his shoulder, as if it were designed for her, and he loops an arm around her shoulders.

“Any numbness in your feet?”

“No,” he says, glancing around out of habit. He can hear birds chirping in the distance, which probably means that they’re alone.

“We should look for talcum powder next time we pass through a town,” she says. “The last thing we need to deal with is trench foot. The only way to treat it is debridement, which would be hellish under these conditions.”

She’s thinking out loud more than really speaking to him, and he hums, shifting so he can support her weight more easily.

“Are you listening?”

“Mostly,” he says. “Look.”

The lake is peaceful, and the autumn sun makes the water glow a soft gold at the edges, darkening to a deep blue in the deeper water. Even the stony beach is beautiful, the sparseness beautiful and open, the mountains in the distance unending.

“That _is_ nice,” Claire says softly, after a while, and snuggles into him.

Ten months since all of this started, ten months where he hasn’t gone more than a few hours without seeing her. A hundred lifetimes ago, they were just people in university. He hadn’t known her, except in passing. But one day he had stepped out of his cheap flat in the student part of town and an old woman had come at him and gone for his throat, jaws snapping with inhuman strength as he had held her off, shock weakening him. He hit her with a metal watering can until she fell, and even then she had dragged herself toward him, jaws snapping shut on air as she inched closer.

Down the street he had seen Claire - a friend of a friend, a vaguely familiar face - surrounded by three of those things, face white with fear but lips set, swinging an old cricket bat as they lurched closer, penning her in between two parked cars.

He had saved her, and they ran, and never looked back.

“Are ye hungry yet?” he asks, rubbing a hand down her arm. She shivers and leans into him, and he makes a note to keep an eye out for thicker jackets now that they’re heading into autumn.

“A little,” she says. “But we have to be careful.”

“Aye,” he agrees, “but not when we have a whole lake to sustain us.” He stands up and stretches, before making his way to his pack, digging in until he finds the collapsible fishing rod they had taken from the back of someone’s pickup.

“Give me an hour,” he promises, “and ye’ll have more fish than ye know what to do with.”

His fishing claims are slightly exaggerated, but soon they have enough that he is full for the first time in a while.

“I never used to like fish all that much,” Claire says dreamily, hand on her stomach. She’s put her clothes back on but hasn’t buttoned them all the way, which he appreciates. “But I don’t think fish has ever tasted so good. It may be my favourite food, now.”

She shuffles so her head is in his lap.

“Everything we find becomes yer new favourite food,” he says.

“What can I say? I’m adaptable.”

“Or no’ verra picky, which has served me well on many fronts.” He smiles at her, and she aims a half-hearted swat at his arm.

“Don’t short-sell yourself,” she says. “We’re doing alright for ourselves, aren’t we?”

They are not, in the sense that he is living the kind of nightmare he hadn’t even thought to fear, and they are, because they’re here, together.

“We are,” he says, and smooths a finger over her cheek, so he can watch the worry lines melt away.

*

It rains heavily the next four days, the freezing water worming its way through their makeshift raincoats - garbage bags cobbled together with duct tape - and dripping down his neck. That, plus the cutting wind leaves them miserable enough that they stop at a tiny village near Kildermorie so they can find a dry place to sleep. Claire has already started to sniffle, and a chest infection is the last thing they need right now. They’re far enough north - further north than Edinburgh and Inverness, even, that the temperature is markedly cooler. They take what they can from the little shops on the outskirts of town, before looking for a place to stop for the night.

They stop at an old barn on the outskirts of the village. It seems empty, but they move slowly anyway, keeping away from dark corners and treading heavily, but nothing stirs in the small space.

He has to admit, it’s nice to be inside, nice not to have to fight with the tarp. He likes the security of a door, a space for just the two of them. He helps Claire out of her sodden jacket and puts her in his spare shirt. The material dwarfs her smaller frame, and he can’t help the fond smile as he tucks the long tail into her trousers.

“I’m not ill,” she says, but doesn’t fight him as he pulls her over to a hay bale in the corner.

“Didna say ye were,” he says. The light here is weak, streaming in from open windows on the loft above them, but he doesn’t want to open the door and leave them exposed. “Allow a man to spoil his lady when he can.” He hands her the water bottle.

“His lady? You’re my man, if anything,” she says, and grins, clearly expecting him to carry the banter on, and maybe it is the misery of the past few days or the past few months, but right now he is worn down to almost nothing.

“I am,” he says simply, takes his soaked coat from his shoulders, spreading it onto another bale to dry. He sits next to her. “Come here.”

She folds into him immediately, thin arms grasping around his waist, cold nose burrowing into his sternum. He shivers from both the temperature and the sensation.

“What,” she says, surfacing to blink up at him, already soft-eyed from comfort.

“Nothin’,” he says, and leans down to press a kiss to the tip of her nose. “Yer poor wee nose is freezing.”

“I’ll survive,” she says, hugging him tight. “God, Jamie, you are ridiculously warm.”

Time passes differently now than it did when the world was normal. He doesn’t remember the last time he was actually bored, and minutes slip away when he stops to rest. He’s brought back to himself by the sound of Claire humming quietly.

“What song is that?”

“Oh, um. It’s Celine Dion. I’m your lady.”

“That’s verra romantic of ye,” he says, and she snorts.

“You put it in my head,” she says. “I used to listen to that song all the time when I was a teenager. Celine understands heartbreak. It was the perfect song to listen to after your first boyfriend dumps you over text.”

“Jenny used to do the same thing,” he says, without thinking, and falls silent. He doesn’t like to think of Jenny, doesn’t like to acknowledge that they are slowly making their way northwest, to Lallybroch, even though he’s sure that Claire has realised by now. If he doesn’t think about her, then he doesn’t have to consider that she might be dead. Her, and Ian, and his wee nephew. He’s seen what happens to children and babies in this new world.

He picks up the thread of humming to distract himself, and Claire giggles against his chest. It’s a very young sound, coming from her, bright and full and belonging to another time entirely, and he keeps on humming, just to keep hearing it.

*

They leave as soon as the sun is up, and run into trouble almost immediately. Five or six undead stand in a group surrounding a figure on the ground, and they swivel to stare at Claire and Jamie, horror movie style, as they desperately try to stop their bikes before they crash into them.

“Fuck, fuck, damn,” Claire chants behind him, as she pulls her machete out of its makeshift holder. He keeps silent, pulling his own out, taking the measure of the blade with a quick swipe before stepping to the right so he can mow down the nearest zombie.

He is aware that Claire is fighting hard, just over his shoulder, but two are coming for him at once and he has to focus on keeping their grasping hands away from him, making sure that he aims the blades at their heads.

In the end, it’s quick and relatively neat work. These ones are old, their blood congealed in their veins, skin in tatters around the joints. He pulls his blade from an eye socket just as Claire swings her machete in a wild arc, taking off the head of the last one.

“Ugh,” she says, wiping the blade on the grass. “I can’t see any more.” He’s walked forward to inspect what they had been gathered around, and finds a mangled body, fresh enough that he can smell the blood. There are bite sized chunks missing from his face and neck and what he can see of the torso, and he takes his pocket knife out and sends it through the poor bastard’s head at that soft spot behind the ear. The last thing they need is a fresh zombie rising when their backs are turned.

“Nicely done.” He stands and whirls in a neat movement to find the source of the sound. There is a man leaning against a tree, arms crossed, relaxed. He’s brown haired and medium height, quite unremarkable. Jamie takes a few quick steps so that he is next to Claire, and tightens his grip on the machete. The man sees the movement and puts his hands up slowly.

“I dinna mean ye any harm,” he says. “Ye’re both verra good at that.”

“Thank ye,” Jamie says. Their bikes are behind them, but he doesn’t want to turn his back on a strange man, so he stays still.

“It’s good to see other people out here,” he says. “Are ye travelling with anyone else?”

The man sounds like a Highlander, like one of dozens of men he had known growing up, but doesn’t let his guard down. Claire doesn’t either, judging from her stance.

“Are ye?”

“A few,” he says. “Lookin’ for a safe place. I’m sure ye know how hard that can be to find. I’m Lionel. Nice tae meet ye.”

“Alex,” Jamie says eventually, when the silence stretches out a tad too long.

“And ye, little lady?” Jamie can feel Claire bristle at that, but she keeps her voice neutral.

“Anna,” she says.

“Nice tae make yer acquaintances,” Lionel says, touching his brow as if to tip his hat.

“Ye as well,” Jamie says. “But we must be leavin’.”

“Anyone expecting ye?” The question is mild, but raises his hackles immediately.

“Yes,” he says evenly, and Lionel’s smile widens.

“Still, mebbe ye can take an hour or two to spend wi’ me and the lads? New faces are always welcome,” he says.

“I dinna think so,” he says.

“A pity,” Lionel says. “It’s always safer tae be in bigger groups. And we dinna hurt ladies.”

“He said no,” Claire says, and Lionel shrugs.

“If ye’re sure,” he says. “But we’ll need yer bags, first.” The words are casual enough that he blinks.

“Yer bags,” Lionel says. There is a rustle behind him, and three more men step into view. They are dirtier than Lionel, and hollow-eyed, and they stare, unspeaking. “Just leave them where they are,” he says, and Jamie would, he really would, except Claire twitches and the men’s eyes snap to her instantly, like birds of prey that have just spotted a mouse in the heathers.

“We dinna hurt ladies,” Lionel says to Claire. “Especially ones as pretty as ye. Just step away. Ye’ll be fine.”

Adrenaline is starting to flood his system, sending his heart into overdrive, trying to speed up his breathing, but he stays as outwardly calm as he can.

“Just move along,” Jamie says. “We dinna want trouble.”

“Neither do we,” Lionel says. The silence from the other men is starting to unnerve him. “We just a little hungry, that’s all. We won’t hurt anything. Would it be so bad to spend some time with us?” the question is directed at Claire, and he burns with rage. “Five men can protect ye better than one,” he says. “Come, Anna.”

“Anna,” one of the men behind her echoes, and laughs.

It seems to happen in slow motion: Claire adjusts her grip on her machete, glances to him, her eyes widen in horror, and he realises that there are four men in front of him, not five.

The blow hits him in the back of the head, and instantly the world is smears of colour and sound, the ground and sky everywhere and nowhere.

*

He’s not out for long. He knows that because he can still hear Claire screaming, and the man who had hit him is fumbling at his waist, tugging at the knife he has strapped to his belt. The bastard is trying to rob him before making sure that he is dead. He allows the fury that has been building up in him ever since Lionel had first appeared to take over, and the world films over in a haze of red as he shoots up, grabs his attacker by the neck, and squeezes until he goes limp.

He wants to run down the incline and rip them apart, but he forces himself to slow. Go canny, as his Da would have said, and he digs into his bag for their one pistol. It only has four bullets in the chamber, but that should be enough.

Slowly, down the incline, following the heavy footsteps and raised voices, the dull sound of a fist striking flesh that makes his vision bleed red for a moment. Breathe in, slow, a calm voice in his head says. Find them all before you attack. Feet shoulder width apart, toes spread. Creep closer.

It feels like days, but in reality is less than two minutes before he can see them. Two of them are packing up a messy camp, stuffing belongings into bags as they see them. One of them, a large, doughy-looking one, is trying to force Claire’s hands behind her back so he can ziptie them together, but she is fighting like a wildcat. Lionel is bellowing orders.

He sticks out his head a little more, and Claire sees him. Her eyes widen with shock and relief, before she pushes, hard, and knocks her captor to the ground, falling as she goes. The men turn toward her in irritation.

“Look,” Lionel starts, and Jamie shoots the one nearest to his hiding place, a neat hole appearing in his throat before he keels over. His next shot hits the second man in the shoulder, and he shoots again before he can think better of it, getting him in the head. Now there is only one bullet left, and Lionel is beginning to recover from his shock, stepping back quickly and hauling Claire to her feet, an iron arm around her throat keeping her in front of him.

“Careful,” he says, earlier affability gone. “Ye dinna want to hurt her, do ye? No’ after ye’ve gone tae all this trouble.” He flicks his hand out and a blade gleams; he presses it to Claire’s throat.

“Let her go,” Jamie says. The last man - the doughy one - is clambering to his feet, eyes flickering between them, clearly unsure about what to do.

“Jamie,” Claire says, and he looks at her. She doesn’t look scared, only determined, the fist of her right hand clenched in a way he recognises. He nods minutely, and she brings her closed fist up and across, the blade of the tiny knife she carries slicing into Lionel’s face at the temple, and dragging down and across over his face. It’s a devastating injury, and he releases her and screams, his knife catching in her jacket, hands flying to his face. Jamie shoots the other man and reaches Lionel in a heartbeat, using his pistol as a different kind of weapon.

When he is done, his hands are covered in blood. Claire stares blankly at him. He opens his mouth to say something, and is prevented by a shuffle to their left, a throaty moan that sends the hairs on his back standing up.

“We must go,” he says, taking her hand in his, and they run.


	2. Chapter 2

They ride as fast as they can, leaving caution to the wind, desperate to much as much space as possible between them and what has just happened.. They only slow down when the sun begins to set, and they stop for good when his muscles begins to tremble from exhaustion and Claire’s breathing turns ragged.

This time they stop in a not-quite cave, more in indent in a hill. It’s halfway up a steep slope, and the path is gravelly enough that they will hear anyone coming a mile away.

Claire is quiet and white-faced, and so he takes her pack from her to dig through for water. She winces when he pulls it off her arms and her frowns. Looks closer, and his heart sinks.

“Mo ghráidh,” he says softly, and she hugs her arm closer to her.

“It’s not that bad,” she says defensively, but the blood stain shows even through her dark blue jacket. He touched the material, and it’s sodden. She looks away. “We had to get away,” she says. He swallows.

“I’m going to set up for the night,” he says. “And ye’re goin’ to sit there,” he points at an outcropping of rock near the entrance.

“I can help,” she says, and he thinks he may explode with anger.

“Ye can sit there,” he says. “Unless ye’re wanting to expire entirely, and leave me alone,” he adds, which is cruel enough that she only stares, eyes wide, before moving away.

*

Shame doesn’t feel as good as anger, and he approaches her tentatively, first aid box held up as an offering. She watches him, that expressive face of hers making it clear that she would rather he was anywhere but here, and he sits down next to her.

“I was scared, and I took it out on ye,” he says. The words hang in the air, and he glances at her.

“I was scared, too,” she says.

“I ken. It wasna right of me. I’m sorry.” She sighs, and touches the top of his hand.

“I know.”

Together, they peel her jacket off, Claire biting at her lip to keep quiet. There’s a large gash in the material, and it prepares him slightly for the view of her arm, cut open from above her elbow down to the middle of her lower arm, oozing blood whenever she moves.

“It’s not that bad,” she says, and he busies himself with folding her clothes on the ground next to him so she doesn’t see his face.

“I should clean it out first, aye?” he asks, and she nods. So he pours some of their precious water onto the cut, then rummages in the first aid kit for the antiseptic. She takes a deep breath in, and nods.

She can’t scream without attracting attention to them, and so she whimpers instead, a lingering sound that makes his wame turn. He keeps at it, though, rotating her arm slightly so the liquid gets everywhere, thinking about wound inflammation and tissue death to remind himself why he is doing this.

When he finally puts the bottle down they are both trembling and covered in sweat.

“Christ,” he says, and she cracks her eyes open.

“Not quite done yet,” she says, and smiles weakly. “Pull out the suture kit.”

*

Jamie is very good at sewing buttons, and mending simple holes in shirts, but the idea of putting this very sharp needle he is holding through Claire’s flesh is unsettling enough that he stares instead.

“The needle won’t stay sterile forever,” Claire says. She is breathing in short, hard puffs. “Just do it.”

The needle pushes through her flesh easily, the string not tugging at all. He keeps his eyes on his work and not on her face, does his best to block out her cries, the tremble of her arm as she holds it still, clamped between his knees so she can't pull away.

When he is done, he keeps his head down, carefully resterilising the needle and wrapping it the way Claire does for him. When he finally looks up at her, she looks like he feels, clammy and grey, lines in her face that he has never noticed before.

He wipes the sweat from his forehead, and reaches for the roll of bandages. Around and round again, and up, and all the damage is hidden behind clean strips of cloth.

“Just as good as a real doctor,” she says, and gives him a trembly smile.

“Nowhere close,” he says, and pulls her onto his lap. She is shivering, partly from shock, he thinks, and he shuffles them back until he can lean against a rock. She’s limp and too pliant against him, as if she is asleep, except he can feel the flutter of her eyelashes on his collarbone.

“I thought he killed you,” Claire says quietly. “When he hit your head. I thought you died. That’s why I was screaming.”

He thinks of the marrow-deep fear that had seized him when that man had held a knife to her throat, and kisses her hair.

“It hurts,” she says. “It hurts. And I am so angry. I want to go back and set them on fire. I don’t understand how people can be like that when the world’s gone to hell.”

“Maybe it’s _because_ the world’s gone to hell,” he says.

They had fled York last September, and had to find a place to hide out for winter almost immediately. They had spent the winter in a series of holiday cabins in Kieldder Forest Park, due north of York. The management had left a summer’s worth of food in the pantry, and it had been a welcome respite. The city had been a nightmare, death all around them, crazed people mixing in with the undead, looting and panic.

He’d wanted to come to Lallybroch straight away, but the roads were almost impassable, in the beginning.

Three months in at the cabins, and they still had all the food they needed, Claire had invited Jamie into her bed for the first time just before the New Year, by his reckoning, and he had walked out the very next morning and had only barely avoided being seen by a large group of motorcycles, roaring into the campground.

He had stayed out of sight and watched them, mesmerised by the sight of other people for the first time in months, when he had seen that five of the motorcycles had people chained to the back of them, like livestock. One person - the leader, he thought - had an old man on a long chain. He'd done circles in the small parking lot, and the man had tried desperately to keep up and stay on his feet while everyone else laughed. Then he had shot him in the head with a shotgun. Jamie made his way back to Claire, woke her, and the two of them had left within the hour.

He’s taken her onto his lap as much for his comfort as hers, if he’s being honest with himself, and he takes full advantage of that now, tucking her against him, resting his hand on the delicate bones of her spine.

“Not all of it,” she says.

*

They spend the next few days holed up in the cave, until Claire can move her arm without it hurting her too much. He’s content to sit in the light and pore over the faded map and compass. It’s an old one, at least eighty years judging from the markings, missing some roads, but it’s the best they have.

The last time he was home was almost a year before all of this started. He’d promised to go back for Wee Jamie’s christening, and then the world had gone mad.

Lallybroch is easily defensible, he thinks. The old stones have withstood centuries of English malfeasance, and it is remote enough that they wouldn’t be bothered by too many people.

“Jamie.” He turns to see Claire, bleary-eyed from her nap, sitting up from the nest they had made.

“How’s yer arm?”

“Fine. Better,” she amends, when he raises an eyebrow. “How much further?”

“Two or three days,” he says. “Or more, maybe.”

“Two or three,” she says. “I know you miss them.” She crawls forward and covers his hand with hers, stilling them from the nervous tapping.

*

They make it in four days. Claire struggles to hold her weight up with her arm still sore, and Jamie resolves to keep an eye out for painkillers. She doesn’t complain, but he notices that she starts lagging behind after only a couple of hours.

“One or two more days willna make any difference,” he tells her when she protests, even though her lips have gone white. “We’ve already agreed I canna balance us both on this bike.”

The extra time and the remote route he leads them down - even more isolated than their original one, keeps them safer, but it also means that they don’t have any opportunity to find more food. Water is plentiful, which means they can keep going, but by the time they turn onto the dirt road that leads to Lallybroch he is almost lightheaded from hunger.

They dismount from their bikes about three hundred metres from the entryway to Lallybroch, just behind the crest of a large hill, and hide their bikes in some nearby bushes.

“Lead the way, Fraser,” Claire says, when he hesitates, and he takes a deep breath, winds their fingers together, and takes them down the hill.

The courtyard is deathly quiet, which is so alien to his memories of this place that is so full of life in all of his memories. The windows are boarded up, the side door barred shut, but other than that there is no sign that there are people inside.

He stoops down in a smooth movement and picks a pebble up from the ground, sending it into one of the windows on the first floor. The glass breaks with a sharp sound that makes him jump, the shards glittering as they fall.

“Jesus, Jamie,” Claire says, clutching at him arm, but he barely hears, his heart thundering in his chest as something stirs at the window. The figure moves out of shadow, and his heart lurches as he catches sight of the blank, filmed eyes, the rot and decay.

The zombie locks eyes with him and snarls, walking forward until momentum carries it over the edge. It falls and hits the ground with a crunching thud, and turns its head round to face him. It must have scraped past the jagged glass in the window frame because what was left of its skin is hanging in tatters, hiding its features.

He can see long, dark strands of hair matted to its head, and he swallows hard.

“Shit,” Claire mutters behind him, and he hears the rasp of her machete being drawn out of its sheath. “On your right,” she says sharply, and he reacts just in time to dodge the grasping hands of another one, fully mobile, its mouth straining towards any part of him that it can reach.

He’s reacting slower than usual, shock dulling his senses and numbing his fingers, but he kicks it away anyway, and uses the delay to grab for his machete. The zombie climbs to its feet, slow but singleminded, and he recognises the tarnished silver chain around its neck as Tammas’, a man who used to do odd jobs around the estate. The pain is a pinprick compared to the horror of his sister being dead, but it slows him further, and he can barely hold it back.

There is a swirl of movement just behind it, and it collapses, Claire’s pocketknife sticking out from behind its ear. Normally he would make a joke about her surgical approach to zombie removal, but his brain is horribly blank, and all he can do is stand.

“My sister,” he says eventually, when Claire looks at him quizzically. “She has dark hair.”

She looks at the zombie a few feet away, and he sees the moment when it hits her, the horror and sympathy and sadness each taking their turn to cross her features, before she looks back at him, face set.

“Are you sure?” she asks, and he moves his shoulders infinitesimally. “Lots of women have dark hair,” she says. She walks over to it, feet only a few inches away from its hands.

“_Move_, Claire.” he moves forward to pull her away, which brings him close enough to it that he has to _really_ look. He doesn’t want to, but he does, hope curling in his chest despite his best efforts.

The zombie at his feet is tall and lean, the fingers long like a pianist’s. Jenny had - has - tiny hands, like his Aunt Jocasta. And -

“She’s tall, like ye,” he says to Claire. “A Dhia. That’s Mary McNab.”

He hates himself, just a little for the relief that floods through his system. He’d liked Mary, known her all his life. But she’s not his sister.

“I’ll do it,” he says, pulling out his knife. It feels like it should be his responsibility.

“Go with God,” he says, and sets her free. She slumps into the dust, and he steps away.

The wood barring the front door is warped from water damage, and he pries it away easily.

“Ready?” he asks, and Claire takes his hand as they walk into the house together.

*

He can hear his heart beating in his ears as they walk through the house together. They had let go of each other so they would have room to fight if needed, but they don’t wander too far - splitting up never ended well for the poor bastards in the horror movies he had loved - and they clear the rooms one by one, Jamie leading the way, using his memories to skirt them around blind spots.

They find nothing, in every room. There are signs of habitation, but the house is covered in a layer of dust, the drawers screech when pulled open, and the air smells musty.

“They’re no’ here,” he says eventually.

“Let’s check the kitchen for food,” Claire suggests, ruthlessly practical, except they’re down to enough for maybe one day, if they load up on enough water to keep their stomachs distracted.

The kitchen is just as bare on their second look-through.

“Hmm,” Claire says, and holds out a piece of paper. “Does this mean anything to you? It was in one of the cabinets.”

He takes it from her, and shakes dust off the paper before staring, heart stuck in his throat. Written in thin, spidery, familiar writing, is _Mac Dubh_, carefully centred on the page.

It only takes him a moment to realise what it means, and he grabs the edge of the kitchen table. It’s solid oak, and barely budges.

“Help me move this,” he says, and Claire, moves to the other side, pushing with all her might. The table moves with an almighty screech, making him wince, but he feels carefully along the edging of the stone. His fingers feel a slight indentation, and he runs his hand along until he feels the place where the wood drops slightly.

He gets a poker from the fireplace, wedges it into the miniscule space and pushes, and the trapdoor lifts neatly, just like it used to when he was a bairn.

“A priest’s hole,” he explains to an astonished Claire. “My ancestors used it to hide Catholics. One of my direct descendants hid from the English for seven years, and when he came to the house they would hide him in here. The people around these parts called him _Mac Dubh_.” He stares at the pitch black space. He knows that it’s only about six feet wide, maybe eight feet deep at most, but the dark seems to go on forever.

He gets the torch out of his pack and shines it in. Nothing’s in there, except a cardboard box, so he shrugs his pack off and prepares to climb down the rungs set into one wall, carefully testing their strength before trusting his weight to them.

“Careful,” Claire says worriedly, as she disappears from view.

The box is heavier than it looks, and he opens it up to find cans of food, crammed in neatly. He staggers over to the ladder and climbs one-handed, Claire relieved as he reappears.

They spread it out on the table - there are cans of soup, corn, baked beans, even pasta, packed efficiently.

“Was this all Jenny?” Claire asks.

“It must have been,” he says, and his heart jumps when he sees the familiar spidery writing on a piece of paper tucked into a corner. He opens the note and reads it twice, heart hammering.

“What does it say,” Claire asks quietly, after a minute. He takes a deep breath, staring at the Gaelic.

“It says, _brother, I am safe, as are Ian and our son. McRannoch found a settlement due West of here. The others are gone or dead, and we must find people if we are to survive. I pray every day that you will find us. Your sister, Janet_.

They’re alive,” he says. He had walked through the rooms of this house with his breath held, afraid that at any moment he would find the bodies of his sister or best friend or baby nephew. Or worse, that they would be waiting for him, hungry, and he would have to end them. But they are somewhere safe and alive, waiting for him. And so he stands in the empty kitchen of his childhood home, and weeps.

*

There is a pool of clear water a few kilometres from Lallybroch instead, hidden behind brambles and only accessible by a very narrow path. He knows it will be a safe place, and it is. It looks just like it did when he saw it last, almost dreamlike, with the rich green plants at its edge and water cool and clear enough that he can almost see to the bottom.

“First one in loses,” he says, and he revels in Claire’s shock as he strips down to nothing and wades in. The water is deliciously cold and clean, and he shivers in delight as it hits the back of his neck.

“Come in, Sassenach,” he says. “It’s safe.” She looks dubious.

“It looks freezing cold,” she says.

“Aye, ‘tis a bit bracing. But cold water is good for the mind, that’s what my Da used to say.”

“It’s not good for _my_ mind,” she says. “My brain performs optimally in normal temperatures.”

“Fine, then,” he says. “Ye said ye wanted a bath. Well - ” he sweeps his arm out in a motion that encompasses the water, accidentally on purpose flicking some her way. She flinches, looking a bit like an offended cat.

“I specified a warm bath, thanks,” she says.

“Suit yerself,” he says. “But I have to tell ye, I can feel the dirt just floating off me. It feels like heaven.” He leans back and closes his eyes, the water just deep enough that he can float, and maybe a minute later he hears the slosh of water as Claire tiptoes in.

“Fuck,” she says, near his head. “Dirty was better.” She’s wide-eyed, goosebumps rising up on her visible skin, and he rights himself so he can kiss her, deep and hard and possessive, and she kisses him back, pushing her body into his, the warmth of her skin a delightful contrast to the water.

He feels almost giddy with happiness in this moment, and he guides her over to where he knows there are flat rocks just under the surface of the water. She scoots back and spreads her legs so he can step in between them, locking them around his waist.

“This is new,” she murmurs, leaning forward to kiss him again. “You feel different, underwater.”

“Different, how?” she raises her eyes to his, her eyes dark.

“I’ll tell you later,” she says, and leans in.

*

When she starts to squirm he urges her up onto dry land and spreads her legs open so he can lean in and press his mouth to her centre. One of her hands tangle in his hair, the other goes to cover her mouth. He moves slowly, enjoying the sensation, the sounds that escape her, the blazing heat against his mouth. He waits until she starts to beg, breathless, the hand in his hair twisting enough to hurt, before he surges up and over her.

The feel of her hand on his cock enough to make him struggle to hold on to his last shreds of control. She knows, it, too, and takes full advantage, playing him like an instrument, eyes fixed on him, until he eventually takes her hand away and wraps her leg back around his waist.

“Jamie,” she says, and as always, he is beholden to her. “Jamie,” she says again, and he is lost.

*

They find the settlement two weeks after they leave Lallybroch. It’s due west, just as Jenny had said, heavily fortified, a small village bordered by a cliff face on two sides. They stay away, watching to make sure it is a safe place. The people inside smile and laugh, and move around freely from what he can see from his limited vantage point.

He watches for two days before he sees Ian. He’s sure it’s him, even though he has a thick beard covering part of his face. He’s smiling and gesturing, and Jamie presses the binoculars against his face until his bones start to hurt.

When Ian moves out of sight he shimmies down the silo he’d been laying on top of, pressed down flat so he wouldn’t be seen, and makes his way to where Claire is. He finds her waiting, alert.

“Good news?” she says, looking at his face.

“I saw Ian,” Jamie says. “And he looked happy.” He’s smiling widely, and Claire smiles too, cheered by him.

“Do you want to go now?” He opens his mouth to say yes, and pauses.

“Do ye?”

People means society, means becoming a part of the community. Claire, as a medical student, is going to be in demand, and he would be the most help at building or planning, maybe, and it’s truly hitting him that he hasn’t spent more than two hours away from her in almost a year.

She bites her lip.

“It would be safer,” she says. “And warmer, probably. They might have actual beds.”

“Most likely,” he agrees.

She looks in the direction he came in, then back at him.

“Everything’s going to change,” she says. “For the better, I think.” Her hand drifts unconsciously to the side pocket where she keeps her precious seeds. “But,” she slants her eyes away from him, fleeting shyness on her features. “But, I don’t think I could have made it through this year with anyone else. I don’t think I would have wanted to.”

“Ye made it easier,” he says. Easier, because they had created a new world together while the old one had crumbled into dust. He smiles. “Ye make everything easier.”

“One more day,” she says. “Just the two of us.”

“One more,” he agrees, and yes, he loves her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That's it for this one, but I'll probably add to this verse and make this fic part of a series! Let me know what you thought below. I'm also on tumblr at fallofrainblog :)


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